schools in Surrey ? (g&t maths)

[Rianna]

My son is exceptional at maths (7 yrs now).
Unfortnudely his needs are not met at his (prep)school and he has been bored for over two years now.He is very frustrated and gets sort of depressed if he doens't get stimulation.My choice has been to discourage him from doing maths althogether out of school to keep him from being bored- it is not working as he still hasn'e learnded anything new.in yr 1 he was doing yr 4-5-6 maths or more, all by himself because he just figured everything out by himself ( after playing with a calculator).
Now I'm looking for a prep school that could meet his needs, or does anyone know what else I could do?
thanks!

The last thing I would do with a young child who is good at maths is encourage him further. imo this is the worst subject you can possibly encourage a child to go further and further in. If anything, he needs to broaden his experience of life, not restrict his interests to a subject that ultimately does not teach him anything about life or how people relate to each other. Maths to my mind is one of those skills that it is possible to pursue to a high level at the expense of personal and social development and maturity, which ultimately will not be doing him a favour in any way. Better that he be bored frankly- he will find something else to do (reading, crafts, imaginative play etc...)

If he is advanced in his thinking skills, consider talking to him about philosophical subjects and developing his intelligence in different directions. Honestly, you will be doing him a big favour not to push him too far ahead in maths.

duchesse, the problem is still at school: during the lessons he is bored and frustrated. that means that the school would make him do something else during his time.To do things over and over that you coudl do years ago, is torture.I was thinking myself to give some other challenges, like logical thinking skills, science, or o philosofical question would be fine- but teh school would need to do it.My husband and I actually agree on not wanting to create a geek- but being so bored is getting painful.It is not only maths he is good at, but that's the schoolsubjecht that causes problems.
thanks for answering !

What have the school said about his ability? Why isn't he getting extension work in class and/or for homework?

What would be the actual point of doing maths way beyond his years. When there is only so far that you can go in junior school . There is other ways of stretching within the maths lesson. if the teacher is adequately planned to deal with his ability there should be no boredom. Most children become easily bored in class anyway who don't find maths easy. That is normal. Children can give the impression of boredom,and then parents put this down to not being stretched enough. A good teacher can make the basics fun and interesting. Not good to push children to far ahead. Why would you want to do that?

I agree with advice on here. Accelleration (going through the curriculum faster) just causes problems in maths, with very little advantage.

It's far more important with bright children to get them to broaden their experiences and skills. Music is linked to maths in some ways, and learning an instrument is a superb discipline for any bright child. It's not easy for anyone and just comes from hard work and dedication. Also getting along with your peers, and learning to work together in groups and teams.

Encourage him too to read for pleasure, and he will learn lots that way too.

There's nothing wrong with being a little bored at times in lessons, and there is still plenty you can learn in those lessons. There are loads of maths 'problems' easily available - eg on the web. Why not harvest a stack and then go and see your ds's teacher and suggest when ds2 has completed the class work he be allowed to attempt some of these.

It's largely a different kind of skill than the work done in 'standard maths classes', and for more challenging/stretching.

I firmly believe that a good percentage (at least 6%) of children could be taught to pass a GCSE maths exam at age 10. But what would that achieve?

Agree with roisin - since my ds started piano lessons he no longer thinks obsessively about maths. It's challenging too, so he has to practice to get results, something he doesn't need to do at school.

However, I'm surprised the school can't do a bit of extension work in lessons. Ds gets extension work that broadly covers the same thing they are doing in class, just at a higher level (e.g. adding 5 fig numbers when others are doing 2) or in a problem solving format.

slight hijack here, sorry - can anyone suggest broadening strategies for a child who's way ahead in maths but completely non-musical (we tried piano/keyboard with no success, ds is tone deaf and completely uninterested) he's in y4 and currently doing y6 maths in school, which I'm not wild about as he's surely just going to end up repeating things for the next 2 and a half years

ds1 is very non-musical too. Do you mean at home or at school?

Things that you can try/encourage at home:
Chess
reading extensively
science exploring (Reading, designing own experiments, etc.)
Logic problems - sudoku, that sort of thing
Computer programming
Lego mindstorms

Does he like making/designing things? ds2 started off with k'nex and lego and when he was 7 got a soldering iron, and he is always off tinkering with something, designing a little circuit, and trying to make it work.

Where do you live? We went to the Edinburgh Science Festival 3 years ago, which got them hooked on various things which they have then taken on further.

thanks Roisin - it was both really - he actually does all the things you suggested already - he was very happy when he got a mindstorms for his birthday - I hadn't really thought of it all as broadening, just play!

it was mainly that people keep on suggesting that mathematically talented dcs should take up music to help challenge/stretch them sideways

but I also need to have a chat with school as at the moment he's doing maths in a little group of one which isn't going to help his rather eccentric social skills one little bit ...

there's a really good computer programming website which children of this ability can use. it's Scratch. I really recommend it.